Rumblings of a Dying Earth
by cloverhand
Summary: All things must come to an end, and the earth is no exception. A story apiece for 9 of the remaining Scoobies -Xander, Willow, Oz, Dawn, Giles, Riley, Faith, Buffy, Angel- just before the final end of days. Willow/Oz, Buffy/Angel, mentions of Giles/Jenny


Rumblings of a Dying Earth

Summary: Everything must come to an end, and not even the earth is exempt from that.

Basically, just nine interconnected ficlits, between 500-1,000 words apiece, each dealing with how a specific character deals with an incontrovertible end. Some characters show up or are mentioned in other ficlets, but each of the nine characters (Xander, Willow, Oz, Dawn, Giles, Riley, Spike, Buffy, Faith) get their own bit. Extended author notes are at the bottom. In this fic, the earth is dying of natural causes, whether you want to blame an exploding sun, global warming, or anything else is the reader's perogative. Continued Author's Note can be found at the end of the story.

Warnings: Some off-screen sex referenced, a little bit of binge drinking, and some harsh/inappropriate language used.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or even claim to own them. Their products of Joss Whedon's idea factory, not mine.

* * *

**Watching Them Walk Away**

When the world ended, Xander Harris was on the phone, feeling happier than he had felt in a while. Everybody had left, left him alone, but now, it seemed like they might all come back together again.

They never did.

Willow had been the first to go. She'd said something was wrong, was off, was broken in the world, but nobody had listened to her. She had yelled at them to listen, had waved and kicked in a swirl of her bright bohemian skirts, but the earth didn't talk to anyone like it talked to her, so nobody had listened to her, either.

She had left one day, four months ago, with little fanfare, because raising a fuss had never really been Willow's style. She'd begged one last time for everyone to listen to her, to accept the evidence she saw as obviously incontrovertible, but nobody had been willing to hear her. When asked where she was going, Willow had only said that she was going to fix the things she could, then she slipped out the front door, and walked six steps before disappearing into the sunlight.

Xander hasn't seen her since.

Buffy and Faith had been the next to notice, before all of the other Slayers. Field experience or something, Xander supposed, now, weeks after they had slipped away. Nobody had believed them either, fickle lot that they all were, when they'd said that the world was dying. Vague feelings and instincts just weren't enough to hang an Apocalypse on, not after years of iron clad prophecies.

They had vanished into the night, both of them, fed up with everything and everyone. If the world was ending, that probably wasn't how they'd wanted to spend their last few days, being ignored and discounted. There hadn't been any goodbyes, not that there really ever were with Faith, and, in some ways, that might have made it hurt Xander less than Willow's abandonment had.

Xander hasn't seen them since.

Dawn had departed next, claiming that she had things to take care of in Rome. Then Giles had gone as well, headed for important business in England. After the Scooby Gang had scattered, a trickle of Slayers, finally feeling what their seniors had felt, weeks before, had begun to leave in a slow, stilted flow of ones and twos, to go home while they still could.

Xander hasn't seen any of them since, either.

He wasn't alone; it just seemed like it now, as he counted down the final grains in the hourglass. They story of his life and times had always been defined by his friends, by the connections that he made and cherished, by the friendships that kept him safe. Now, after he'd watched everyone leave him behind, Xander felt that watching them walk away had reduced him, in a sense. He felt smaller and lesser, like an impotent shadow of his former self, because all of his life, Xander had been part of something, and now he alone.

Now, he was just Xander, just Alexander Lavelle Harris. Once all of the armor is stripped away, every white knight is really just a man, underneath it all. Xander had never felt more defenseless than he did in those last days.

So, when Buffy called him, and told him that she wanted to talk to him, one last time, Xander didn't hear the "one last time" or the implied ending there, he just heard the first friend he'd talked to in a while. Fourteen minutes later, in the middle of Buffy's anecdote about Faith and a biker gang in New Jersey, the world ended, but Xander didn't mind it that much. He was too busy talking to Buffy to care.

When the world died, Xander died at peace with everything, because, after all of those months, he wasn't alone any more.

* * *

**Sense of Necessity**

Before she'd left Scotland, Willow told Xander that she was going to fix the things she could. So she did.

Willow couldn't save the world this time. If the Earth were a human, she'd simply say that it was time for Earth-human to return to the Earth. (After all, she'd learned her lesson about messing with life and death.) However, since she was talking about the Earth, she guessed the best way to phrase it was that all things must come to an end, because that was simply the way of things. The Earth's time was coming soon. She hadn't wanted to believe it at first, had fought and resisted the knowledge, but she was beginning to understand that this was how things had to be.

She had a bucket list, though not in the traditional sense. Instead of a list of wild and exciting things that she wanted to achieve before dying, Willow had a list of amends which she wanted to make, a list of four wrongs she wanted to right. She needed to atone for her sins, ease the burden on her shoulders, before she could accept her death.

Willow needed to make things right again.

She went to Sunnydale first, for the hardest of the four. Everything was gone, dust dancing at the edge of an earthen depression, so Willow knelt by the edge of the crater and bowed her head, as if in prayer. She didn't say anything, the dead don't need words anymore, but as she did what she came here to do, her body shook. She quivered with repressed grief and sorrow and guilt and a hundred different horrible things, feeling like she was caught in a maelstrom. Somewhere, Warren Meers was rotting in Hell, but here, on the edge of nothing, Willow Rosenberg asked his memory for forgiveness, and put them both one step closer to atonement.

"Please forgive me."

She went to see her parents after that. Their new house was just as bland as her childhood home, like they had both been cut from the same cookie cutter and left unfrosted. It was awkward, her homecoming strained by silence and unfamiliarity, but Willow hugged each of her parents one last time, told them she loved them, and walked out their front door. Even as she hurried towards her tiny green rented car, her parents returned to their respective studies, but Willow didn't care anymore. She had forgiven them for their neglect in those final moments, and now there was nothing left to say in this weak shadow of a pretend home.

"I don't hold anything against you."

She went to the airport after she left her parents new house, to return her rental car and to get on her next flight. It was full of people, coming and going and waiting to move on, and it made Willow feel safe, swaddled in anonymity. Nobody here knew what she had done, and the respite was a blessing. As she sat curled up in an orangey chair, identical to the fleet of uncomfortable seats surrounding it, waiting to board, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number she hadn't called in far too long. Giles picked up after a few rings, and suddenly Willow's words were caught in her throat, too big to force their way out. He waited patiently after they exchanged greetings, until Willow was able to say what she needed to say, to let the words rush out through the crack in the dam. After everything Giles had done (mentoring the Gang through high school, helping her pick up the pieces when everything went dark, never turning his back on her), he had gone largely un-thanked, and it wasn't right. So, for five minutes in an airport terminal, crowded with a mass of faceless strangers, Willow told Giles just how much he meant and just how grateful she was to him.

"Thank you for everything."

She went to a hotel, once the plane landed in Istanbul. She didn't know the hotel's name or how to find it on a map, but she followed her gut, because she knew that it was where she needed to be. She felt like a marionette, like someone else was pulling the strings, leading her around by an invisible line that just wouldn't let go. She turned corners and crossed streets, and then, when she arrived at the right hotel, she climbed stairs and passed doors, until she got to the right room. She knew that room 418 was right in the same way that she had found this hotel and had known that Istanbul was the place to go. So, when she knocked on the door and Oz answered, she was completely unsurprised, like she always said she would be. He pulled her into a hug and they spoke quietly, voices hushed as if in prayer. They stood for a long few minutes, still embracing in the open doorway, and, in those perfect, frozen moments, Willow decided that when the world ended, she wanted to die in his arms.

"I still love you."

When the world died, a month later, Willow died in Oz's arms, with a clear conscience and a light heart, because she had finally found the peace atonement offered.

* * *

**Waiting for Forever**

Animals could sense natural disasters before they happened, in a way that humans simply couldn't. As it turned out, werewolves could read the earth the same way.

When Oz first sensed the discord, the rumblings of a dying Earth, he decided to go home. Sunnydale was a hole in the ground, lifeless and barren, but that didn't really matter, because home was never about four walls and a hearth to Oz. Home was with Willow, always.

She had told him, long years ago, that they'd meet again in Istanbul, when it was their time once more. He hadn't forgotten her scent, its memory still haunted his dreams, but he didn't know where to start tracking her. So, instead of tracking her down, he went to meet her there, in Istanbul, where he knew she'd be.

He couldn't explain how he knew that she would be there in Istanbul, there to meet him again, but he _knew_, deep in his bones. Two days after he arrived, he knew that she would find him that day, in the same way that he had known they really would meet again in Istanbul.

When she came to the door of his hotel room, the only thing he could do was fold her into his arms and smile, because, even after all of those years, he was totally unsurprised to see her there. They stood there for a minute, just holding each other like they used to, before she leaned up and kissed him.

"It's time," she told him, and Oz could only smile, wider than he had in years, his face lit up like a candle.

They both knew that the end was coming, and sometimes, lying awake together in the dark of the night, they discussed it, in hushed whispery tones. They didn't fear it, because they had both grown to know the Earth in their lives and travels, and they knew that this was the way it was supposed to be, that this was the way the world ends. They had no choice but to accept it; there was no meddling with the natural order of things.

Oz and Willow stayed in Istanbul for a few days, before setting out to see as much of the world together as they could, before there was nothing left to see. They passed through a different city every day it felt like, but each night, when they fell asleep in a new bed, it felt like home, because they were together.

Before they had met up again, Oz had lived his life on the road, going from place to place in halfhearted attempts to fill the Willow shaped hole in his heart. After Istanbul, he spent a month like this, with Willow by his side, wandering the dying Earth like nomads following the sun. They crossed continents, spending days drifting from city to city, and everything was different. Even though Oz had visited Kiev, had seen Vienna, had stayed in Bucharest, each city, town, and country seemed brighter, happier, more alive when was there with Willow in his arms.

One day, a month after they had reunited, they both woke up and _knew_, with the same gut feeling that had brought them together again. This was the day the Earth would die. For his part, Oz knew that it was time, and he was alright, because he was with Willow, and nothing could be better.

"Where do you want to be for the end?" he whispered in her ear that morning from where he was curled up around her. He watched the sun dance across her red hair and pale, bared skin, and thought that none of the wonderful things he had seen on this Earth could be as beautiful as her.

"I just want to be with you." Oz smiled at her and kissed her gently, because that was all he wanted too.

Neither of them got out of bed that day, wanting to spend each moment in the other's arms. They made love one final time, and, afterwards, they curled together, their limbs entwined as if they were one person. They spent their day talking, just enjoying being with each other. Oz told stories about music, his journey to control the wolf, and falling in love with Willow, and Willow told him about her childhood, her dark years that he had missed, and how she never stopped loving him, even while she loved another.

"I love you," was the last thing Oz said, whispering in Willow's ear at the same moment she sighed it into his own ear. He touched his forehead to hers and pulled her even closer, and, with one last kiss, they waited for the end.

When the world died, Oz died happy and in love, because he had found everything he thought he had lost, and it had given him peace again.

* * *

**What Remains Behind**

Dawn didn't feel the end coming, not the way her sister did. She knew that this world was dying, fading, ending, but only because she was told so. Willow said so, Buffy said so, Faith said so, and then Vi, Rona, Kennedy, Chao Ahn, Renee, and every other Slayer with a functioning Slayer Sense said so. Dawn didn't care, because even though they were right, she knew better than to think everything was going to end. She knew, better than most anyone, that some things truly were eternal.

A planet was dying, in the sense that there would still be a giant hunk of rock there, but that its life force was almost out. It was weird, because she had never thought of the planet being alive until she was told it was dying, but it made sense now. It was all about energy, really, and being energy was something that Dawn knew quite well. It was what she was, after all.

When the Earth died, everything alive would die with it. This dimension, the one Dawn had thought to call home, would become withered and dry, a desert of rocks and bones. The multitude of other dimensions, worlds upon worlds of monstrous hellscapes and warped mirror images of her own, would continue to function, tangential to what the Earth would become. Existence wouldn't end with this Earth, and neither would she.

Dawn Summers knew that she would die with her dimension, but only superficially. She wasn't human, not really, and the Key couldn't die, not the way her sister would and her mother had. Dawn and the Key were one now, two strands bound in a double helix, so, even if her body crumbled or burned, the Key would exist, unfailingly and unceasingly. She had learned to live with who and what she was, to be one with the Key, and that had become her saving grace. Maybe she still wanted to just be a normal girl, like her sister before her had wished, but she wasn't now and she wouldn't ever be. And now, just because she wasn't a normal girl, Dawn wasn't going to die along with everyone else. It was freeing, really, because for once in her life, Dawn didn't have to be afraid. She knew that she was going to be alright. She would always be alright.

She had never liked endings all that much, worst part of the story, if you asked her. This looked an awful lot like an ending, but it wasn't, not for her. It was the end for Buffy, sure, and for Willow, Xander, Janice and every one of those other 6.9 billion humans. But once they've died, they'll get to go to Heaven, just like Buffy did once, so their stories weren't over quite yet. Dawn's story wasn't ever going to end, because the Key was just mystical energy, and energy is never destroyed, and, therefore, she was eternal. Really, Dawn was just starting a new chapter in the long-winded saga of her being. She was ready to turn the page.

When the world died, Dawn died totally at peace with existence, because she knew that, when all was said and done, the Key hadn't died, and neither had she.

* * *

**Those Who Have Crossed**

When Giles heard whispers that the Earth was dying, he listened, and he got ready for the end. He had lived a long full life, fuller than most, and so the only thing left for him to do was to remember.

He started at the beginning, as was fitting. The first day after he heard of the dying Earth, Giles got into his beaten up old Citroen, the one he had driven in the years before he'd heard of Sunnydale, California, and he drove to the cemetery where his parents were buried. He walked in between the tombstones, balancing on the delicate precipice between the worlds of the living and dead, and slowly made his way to his mother's grave. When he reached his mother's headstone, he bowed his head in silent remembrance. It had been a long time since he had been here, nearly as long as his mother had slept beneath this ground. For just a brief moment, he felt like this was his first visit, all over again, like his mother was still newly dead and he was still grieving. Giles could remember the ceremony, could remember his frustration and anger, 17 years old and blaming the world, and he could remember the dangerous path he had walked in the days after his mother's death. Before her headstone, Giles lay down a bouquet of irises, sheathed in a swatch of rosemary, with a final farewell. He walked away slowly, his steps as measured as a soldier's, tired from remembering old grief and sorrow.

The day after he visited the grave of his mother, he took a plane and drove for half a day to visit the grave of the next woman he saw buried. Jenny Calendar had gone back to her people after her death, to be buried among the Rom as Janna Kalderash. The cemetery Jenny was buried in looked much like the ones they had walked in together in Sunnydale, cold, desolate fields that sprouted gravestones like cold, marble flowers. He often remembered her as he did now, reminded by simple things that spoke of her; a pouch of herbs, his reflection on a computer, scattered rose petals. He had loved Jenny, all these years, and he missed her, even after all the days that had passed. He dropped to the ground at the foot of her grave, sitting silently with a bouquet of flowers in one arm and an Orb of Thessulah in the other. For countless minutes he remembered the sound of her laugh, the look of her smile, the feel of her cold, dead body in his arms. He had never forgotten how cruel he was to her, those last few weeks she had to live, and he had never stopped feeling regretful. The memories were bittersweet, and many hurt to relive, but if he didn't remember Jenny Calendar, the woman who became more than just Janna Kalderash, who would? He finally laid the bundle of flowers, each one a carnation, at the foot of her headstone, tucking the Orb beneath the blood red petals, and left. He refused to forget her sacrifice, he promised himself, and he turned from the grave, pockets empty, and waded through the oppressive feeling mist towards his car.

Giles returned home after that. When Sunnydale had sunken into the ground, it had taken it's multitude of cemeteries with it, so Giles had nowhere to go to remember Joyce. He would have gone to Buffy, but she was nowhere to be found, and he was still uncomfortable mentioning Joyce around Dawn. He had no gravestone to visit, no empty patch of grass to lay flowers on. Instead, Giles commemorated her life and death her the only way he knew how: he remembered. So, in memoriam, the day he returned to England, Giles went onto his porch with a journal in hand and, after placing a vase of daffodils on the small table beside him, he began to write. He started with the first time he met Joyce Summers and he ended with her death. He didn't continue to her funeral, but instead, he focused on her life, and how hard she fought for it and for Buffy. Giles wrote down everything he could remember about Joyce Summers, about her amazing strength and the fierce love she had for her daughters, but in the end, it still wasn't enough. When he was finished, he put his words in a box, sealed them inside with the fresh bouquet of daffodils, and buried the box in the ground. He placed a small smooth stone above the scar in the earth, waited in silence a moment, and turned towards his home.

One day, after Giles had settled in to wait for the end, he set a vase of zinnias on the table in his den, grabbed the reading glasses Buffy had helped him pick out, years ago, and pulled out, from a trunk buried in his dusty and seldom visited attic, his stack of Watcher Diaries. He started at the beginning.

He reached the end of Buffy's story, days later, just before the earth reached its end.

When the world died, Giles was ready to die, because he had lived his life to its fullest potential, and he had made peace with all he had lost.

* * *

** Daily Routines**

Riley didn't know that the Earth was dying, and he didn't know that his number, along with that of every other human on the planet, was up. In all honesty, it was probably better that way. Riley was happy living his life out from day to day, and didn't want the unnecessary fuss of end times. He loved his wife, he loved his job, he loved his country, and, on the whole, he loved his life. Life was good to Riley Finn.

If Riley had known that the Earth was dying, he would have tried to stop it somehow, and, when realizing how fruitless that would have been, he would have tried to find someone who could have stopped it. He never would have found anyone, because even the most powerful people he had ever known were powerless to stop it, and they were just waiting for the end. Riley would have fussed and panicked and worried himself sick, and that would've been a miserable way to die.

On the whole, it was probably a good thing that Riley didn't know that the Earth was dying. It's good that in all of Willow's Cassandra-like warnings, and in the mass-exodus of Slayers waiting for the end, nobody ever thought to tell Riley Finn, because he simply would have handled the news poorly. As it were, for Riley, ignorance was bliss.

Instead of panicking and searching for a nonexistent solution, Riley continued on with his daily he life, because he didn't know that the Earth was dying. Without this knowledge, Riley didn't see any reason to change his day to day life, which worked out much better for him. Riley was content with everyday consistency, though, in the life a military demon hunter, there was very little consistency. He was happy with the little bits of a daily routine that he could cobble together: the ordinary tooth brushing and boot cleaning rituals he squeezed in between ever shifting patrol times and debriefings. Riley liked routine, and, in all reality, the end of the world would have just thrown a wrench into his.

Riley's last day on Earth was a good one, all things considered. Finally, after hunting for nearly three weeks, his squadron finally caught up with that group of Olivikan demons they'd been tracking through sewers throughout the Pacific Northwest. That night, after returning to the base, he got to see Sam, for the first time since being assigned this case. After his debriefing, Riley took her out for dinner, in the base canteen, before spending a quiet evening with her, just glad to be next to his wife again. He went to sleep that night exhausted, but content and ready to get up the next morning, write his case report, present in to his superiors, and receive his next assignment. Riley never got his next mission, but it was alright, because, after the Earth died, there weren't any demons left to hunt.

When the world died, Riley died content and feeling at peace with the world at large, because he wasn't expecting anything, and was prepared to live a while longer.

* * *

**For I Have Sinned**

Faith spent the first few days on the road with Buffy. They had left behind all of the newer Slayers, all of whom were all too new and green to sense what was coming. They hadn't sensed a thing, but Buffy and Faith had. She wasn't sure how she knew, it wasn't quite like how she could sense a vampire coming, but she could sense the end, all the same. Weird Slayer shit, probably.

The first few days, she cruised down interstates with Buffy. They were the Chosen Two again, just like old times. Faith didn't like to think about old times all that much, because old times weren't the good old days, so much as the worst parts of her life. Old times were a dead mother and watcher, a group of friends who turned their backs on her, and a knife in her gut. But for now, with the end in sight, Faith pretended that things hadn't been so bad, and she remembered the first few days in Sunnydale, when she was new and exciting, not the enemy.

After a few days of driving all day and partying late into the night, Faith headed out on her own. She left a note for Buffy, goodbyes had never been her style, and she slipped out like a thief in the night. There was someplace she needed to be.

They were in New York City at the time, Buffy insisted that she get there before she died again, so Faith just had to walk a few blocks to get the nearest police station. They were all over the city, spaced periodically, like guards on castle walls. When she reached the police station, on 21st street and just past the corner of 34th, just six blocks away from their overpriced hotel, Faith took a deep breath, probably her final breath of free air, and walked inside to turn herself in.

The man at the desk didn't exactly seem pleased to see her, probably hoping for an uneventful shift. All the same, once Faith announced that she'd killed two men and broken out of prison, he was more than happy to get two armed guards to get her into a holding cell for the night.

That same time, two nights later, Faith was safely tucked away in a cell in USP-Hazelton, not exactly cozy, but rather snug. If she had a choice, this wouldn't be her first pick for her last few weeks on Earth, but she didn't really feel like she had a choice. She told Angel, a few years ago, that she wanted to change, to make up for the sins of her past, and she still did. Guilt still hung over Faith like a shroud, so, now, with the end of days at hand, Faith went back to atoning for her sins.

The food in prison was bad, just like she remembered, and her bed was hard and the mattress was lumpy. Each day was routine, exhausting in its simplicity, and she constantly missed the freedom of the open sky and the power of a stake in her hand. Faith survived, like always, learning to deal with her new reality, because atonement was never fun, and couldn't ever be easy. Just because it sucked didn't mean it wasn't necessary. She learned that much from Angel, years ago.

Slowly, as the days ticked down like seconds on a time bomb, Faith found a sort of peace. Not all was forgiven, and she didn't truly believe it ever would be, but coming back here, after she'd tasted freedom, was a start towards redemption. In prison, Faith started to finally forgive herself, finally taking the final step she had been building up to since the day she broke down crying in Angel's arms. By the time she knew that the Earth had only days to live, Faith had finally forgiven herself, and was ready to see what came next. A Slayer's not afraid of anything, after all. Not even Death, itself.

When the world died, Faith died with a smile on her face, because she had found forgiveness from the one person who had yet to give it, and it brought her peace.

* * *

**In the End**

It had taken Buffy longer to catch on to the whole "the Earth is dying" thing than it had taken Willow, but she got the memo, nonetheless. That night, she and Faith, who had started to feel it too, packed small bags and left without warning. They fled like prey, not like the hunters they truly were, and left no traces with which they could be tracked.

It took a while for everything to really sink in. Buffy had a hold on the facts (the Earth was dying, it had to happen this way, she couldn't do anything to change that), but they were isolated statistics, individual stars instead of a constellation. Finally, days later, Buffy realized just what picture all of these facts painted together: the world was ending, and this time, she couldn't stop it.

Buffy was used to saving the world, fighting until her last breath and then coming back to fight again. Passive acceptance wasn't her style at all. She was certain, unshakably so, that there had to be something, anything, everything that she could do.

"Sometimes," Faith had told her, staring out the window of the cheap hotel at the wine and bruise colored sunset, "There's nothing you can do, B. Just gotta run with it."

That night, Buffy went to the bar down the street from the hotel and drank until she passed out. Each sip she took was accompanied by Faith's voice, echoing through her brain like a song stuck on repeat. _There's nothing you can do, B._ She got passed out after a while, after she had drunk until she was able to forget.

When she woke up, back in her hotel room, her head was on fire and heavy as a brick. All of the things she'd tried to forget came rushing back, and Buffy tried her hardest to accept that some things couldn't be changed, no matter how powerful you were. She still wasn't sure if she truly believed it, but she was starting to understand the situation.

Faith slipped away the next night, and Buffy was on her own. _In the end, the Slayer is always alone_, was the mantra that she'd always heard repeated, but no longer believed. She'd believed it once, when she'd become Anne, but she knew better now. _Manus._ She was the hand, but never the whole.

Now, for the first time in years, Buffy was really and truly alone. Fear, that she would die here, alone in an empty hotel room, crushed down on her throat, cutting off her air like a noose. It was unbearably awful, the idea of spending her last days without the family she'd made.

Something in the back of her head pulsed like a countdown when she woke up, as if she could forget her deadline. It wasn't an exact science, but her best estimate was that she had less than two weeks, maybe just ten days, before the end. There was a faint sensation, like the ticking of a clock or the slowing gears of a wind up toy, buzzing insistently in the base of her skull, a constant reminder that her moments were numbered. It wasn't precise, by any means, but it had steadily been getting louder, more obvious and harder to ignore.

It took her days to try and track down any of the self-entitled Scooby Gang through the network of supernatural connections she had built. By the time she'd had someone find the majority of them, Buffy estimated she had just a few days left. The buzzing in her head had taken over her Slayer sense entirely, and now all she could sense was impending doom. There wouldn't be enough time to get to Europe, and she'd be hard pressed to book a flight or a bus ticket to Cleveland this late. It would take days to get to any of them, and in a matter of days, everything would be over.

Two mornings later, the buzzing suddenly stopped, and Buffy knew it was time. She couldn't see her family before the end, but she could do the next best thing. Buffy called Dawn first, then Giles. She would've called Willow, but the other girl seemed unable to stay in a city for more than a day, so, instead, she ended by calling Xander. They talked for hours, celebrating lives that had been well lived and friendships that would surely survive even this final Apocalypse. Buffy was too distracted to notice the klaxons and alarms her Slayer sense picked up, and, as such, was too busy talking to Xander to be afraid.

She hadn't saved the world this time, but that was okay. Nothing could last forever, or so she'd figured out somewhere along the way. And to Buffy, it was okay, because if she had to die, at least she wasn't alone in the moments before.

When the world died, Buffy wasn't alone anymore, and with the security of her family, she died having made peace with her ending.

* * *

** A Thousand Words Wiser**

He had gotten a call from Willow early one evening, with tidings of the end of the world, of an earth that couldn't be saved. It wasn't the first time she'd been the bearer of bad news, but they both knew that it would be the last. She told him that, to her best guess, there was a little less than a month left before the end, and that this was just another stop on her goodbye tour. She said he ought to start some goodbyes of his own.

That night, Angel drank glass after glass of whiskey until he was numb, and he allowed himself a night, a single starless window of time, in which he could forget. It was useless. With each swallow he took, he was mercilessly reminded of the end of days, and with each unnecessary breath he seized, he counted down the breaths before he was allowed no more.

The next morning Angel was spared the pain of a hangover, a welcome effect of vampire physiology, but he was left with a knot of unresolved relationships and not yet atoned for sins burning through his stomach. It burned slow and hot, not quite guilt, but close. Angel knew guilt well, had carried it like Atlas for a hundred years, woke up with its acrid taste on his tongue for hundreds of thousands of mornings. This wasn't guilt, so much as regret.

Angel had left so many things undone, unfinished, unsaid. He had never had the chance, or maybe he had just never taken the chances offered him, and now, the knowledge, cold and certain, that he would never have the chances that he needed was all he could think about. He had just a few weeks left, and for someone who used to have eternity, that was nowhere near enough time to mend everything he'd left broken.

Of all of the people he had unfinished business with, he knew where none of them were, save those already buried. He didn't know where to find any of them, had no addresses or phone numbers, and had no magical means of communication. He had so many things to say, but no one to say them to, so he did the next best thing.

That evening, when the sun went down, for what was one of its final viewings, Angel sat at his wooden desk, pulled out an old fashioned fountain pen, and a stack of paper. Just because he had nobody to tell, didn't mean he didn't have things to say.

He started with shorter letters. To Wesley, he wrote that he was the greatest Watcher he'd ever known, and a good friend on top of that, something he'd never found the time to say. To Xander, he apologized for ill will and admitted a respect he'd never had the inclination to share. To Doyle, he promised that he'd died a hero's death, fully redeemed, which he'd never been allowed to declare.

When the sun rose, Angel put down his pen and stepped away, faint smudges of ink staining his pale flesh like shadows.

For the next ten days, Angel wrote from dusk until dawn, collecting ink stains in exchange for regrets. He wrote letter after letter, to Willow, Giles, Fred, Lorne, Lindsey, Dawn, and so on and so forth. On the corner of his desk sat an untouched page of stationary, under a pristine white envelope addressed to Buffy Summers.

With each passing day, the letters became harder to write and more difficult to articulate. Cordelia, Drusilla, Connor, Spike, and so it went. Finally, after he long since stopped counting the days and hours and minutes, the desk was left empty, excepting an old black fountain pen, an addressed envelope, and a stack of blank paper, a pile of finished and sealed letters at its foot.

There was only Buffy left now.

For minutes, Angel stared at the paper, unable to start. There were so many things that needed saying, too many to ever finish counting them, but he wasn't sure how to say any of them. Finally, he decided to start with the truth, simple and unadorned.

_Buffy, I love you._

He ended with it too.

When the world died, Angel didn't die happy, but he was very nearly there, finding peace in all of the broken and loose ends he'd come to terms with.

fin.

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If you have any feedback, or any sort, please let me know, through comment or message! Reviewers get semi-imaginary brownie points and a warm fuzzy feeling.

**Author's Notes**: This is something I'd been working on off-and-on for a while now. Basically, I just thought it'd be kinda neat to see how the Scoobies dealt with facing an apocalypse that they couldn't stop. I like certain parts better than others, but that's basically how it goes. Here are specific notes for specific bits:

**2.** (Willow) The title is taken from the Lord Byron quote, _"The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity."_

Willow's meeting with Oz in Istanbul was inspired by Willows quote in the episode "New Moon Rising," from Season 4.

"_I was waiting. I feel like some part of me will always be waiting for you. Like, if I'm old and blue-haired and I turn the corner in Istanbul, and there you are. I won't be surprised... Because you're with me, you know?"_

**4.** (Dawn) The title is taken from the William Wordsworth poem, "Splendor in the Grass."

"_We will grieve not, rather find_

_Strength in what remains behind;_

_In the primal sympathy_

_Which having been must ever be"_

**5.** (Giles)The title quote is taken from a T.S. Elliot poem, "The Hollow Men."

"_Those who have crossed_

_With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom_

_Remember us - if at all - not as lost"_

All of the flowers used have symbolic meanings: Iris- wisdom and valor; Rosemary-remembrance; Carnation-love; purple Hyacinth-I'm sorry, please forgive me; Daffodil-respect; Heather-admiration; Zinnia-thoughts of friends.

**7**. (Buffy) _Manus, _is the Latin word for hand, and it was Buffy's role in the spell that joined Buffy with Willow, Xander, and Giles, in order to defeat Adam, in Season 4's "Primeval."

**8.** (Faith) The police station Faith goes to is the Queens Police Department, and it's actually on 21st street on Long Island, and in Long Island City instead of Queens, according to Google Maps. In case you were wondering, there is a Best Western, six blocks about away. I got kind of neurotic finding a police station, sort of because I was bored, but mostly because I'm neurotic and borderline OCD. It's a thing.

USP-Hazelton is a high security prison that houses male and female inmates in Preston County, West Virginia. Having limited knowledge of the US prison system, this was the closet high security prison to New York that housed women that I could find. I looked this one up too.


End file.
